Companies

The DeKleer Brothers: Builders of Fraser Sailboats and Endurance 35sThe DeKleer Brothers

While the history of wooden boats has been comprehensively chronicled from the earliest prehistoric dugouts to 20th century fishing boats, tugs and yachts, the same cannot be said of fibreglass boats. For two to three decades fibreglass boat building was a thriving cottage industry on Canada’s west coast. Arie and Len DeKleer developed an enduring fleet of yachts.


The People’s Steam Navigation CompanyPeoples Steamship Navigation Co.

For a short time this company competed for dominance on the passenger run from Victoria BC to Nanaimo BC only to be put out of business by the E & N Railway.


Yarrows Ltd.Yarrows Ltd.

Once a major employer on Esquimalt Harbour this company passed out of existence in the 1990s. Building naval and merchant vessels they were a scion of the great British ship builders.


MacFarlane Brothers TowingMacFarlane Brothers Towing

The history of a pioneer west coast tug boat family and the vessels that they owned and operated over nearly a 100 year span in the forest and fisheries towing industries.


Capital Iron and Metals Ltd.Capital Iron and Metals Ltd.

Today’s popular Victoria BC department store had beginnings as a ship breaker and scrap metal dealer. Moving slowly from that to surplus marine equipment sales to hardware to a fully fledged department store is part of British Columbia's maritime heritage.

Nauticapedia

Site News: March 16, 2024

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 91,134 vessel histories (with 15,557 images and 12,826 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,612 entries (with 4,007 images).

In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!

My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

Also my special thanks to my volunteer content checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 10,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.


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